As telecommunications connectivity reaches 80 per cent of Papua New Guinea’s population, Business Advantage PNG looks at how the country’s telecommunications wholesaler, PNG DataCo, is working to encourage greater adoption of the internet by business and consumers.

PNG DataCo’s current and planned cable network. Credit: PNG DataCo

A total of 12,000 km of fibre-optic cables has been laid to date as part of PNG’s broadband network, the National Transmission Network (NTN), which PNG DataCo – the state-owned telecommunications wholesaler – owns and manages.

PNG has now rolled out telecommunications connectivity to 80 per cent of its population, according to a recent statement by Steven Matainaho, Secretary at PNG’s Department of Information and Communications Technology.

However, although most of the population is now notionally covered by broadband connectivity, “the penetration and the actual usage of mobile is still very minimal,” Tony Morisause, PNG DataCo’s General Manager Engineering, told the 2024 Business Advantage PNG Investment Conference last month. He said mobile penetration is at just 30 to 40 per cent currently.

Shared towers

One of DataCo’s key initiatives aimed at bridging the connection gap is a collaborative effort with local government, which will reduce the need for retail telcos to build and maintain their own mobile towers in every location.

“We are working with our local MPs to build 500 carrier-neutral towers in the space of three years. We’re filling in the gaps where the current mobile carriers can’t go because of economic reasons,” Morisause said.

“We are working with all our three main operators – Telikom, Digicel and Vodafone – plus all the ISPs [internet service providers].

“We are also helping new ISPs to come up into the space in order for us to grow penetration so that we can utilise the massive capacity that we have already built for the country.”

Beefing up infrastructure

PNG DataCo’s Tony Morisause  Credit: BAI/Stefan Daniljchenko

The K72 million in funds that DataCo is committing to shared mobile towers is just part of a budgeted K592 million spend on digital infrastructure over the next three years, with the goal of bringing the NTN to all provinces by 2027. This is part of the wholesaler’s longer-term K1.272 billion Digital Infrastructure Investment Program, which runs to 2038.

The most expensive item in the next three years will be the expansion of PNG’s terrestrial and undersea cable network, including the commissioning of phase two of the Kumul Submarine Cable Network, KCSN-2.

“Domestically, we are now beefing up the submarine cable network,” said Morisause. “We have the capacity, design and build for eight terabytes. We are slowly equipping as the need arises.”

Alongside the additional cable, DataCo estimates the country will need an additional 5-to-10 MW of data centre capacity over the next five years.

“We are thinking of building an additional three or four more new data centres, because the take-up is just exponential.”

“We are also looking at investing in last mile solutions, because we have massive capacity stuck up at one end of the network, and there is less utilisation at the other end. We need to find a way to create an opening for massive bandwidth to be utilised.”

DataCo’s “last mile” project will deploy Gigabyte Passive Optional Network (GPON) technology to eventually connect up to 500,000 premises to data speeds of 100 Mbps or more. GPON trials are currently under way in Port Moresby and Maprik.

Google?

Further in the future is the need to consider greater redundancy and capacity in PNG’s international connections to the World Wide Web. DataCo has already upgraded its connections to the two existing international cables servicing the country, PPC1 and the Coral Sea Cable Network.

Morisause revealed that DataCo was currently favouring an additional connection to Google’s Central Pacific Connect Cable, currently set for completion in 2026.